Stargazing

A purely astronomy-oriented app, Star Walk brings the heavens straight down to your iPad. It has several features, but when you first open it, you'll be asked for your current location. Once you've given[more…]

If you use binoculars for your stargazing, you need to get them into focus before you begin. Once your binoculars are focused, the stars you see should look incredibly sharp. You can focus most binoculars[more…]

When you use a telescope for your stargazing, it usually comes with a finderscope, a small attachment which allows you to focus on the correct part of the sky. To align your finderscope and telescope:[more…]

One of the great signposts in the northern hemisphere sky is the Big Dipper, also known as the Plough, an asterism in the constellation of Ursa Major. If you can find the Big Dipper, then you’re well on[more…]

Orion is great signpost constellation to use for your stargazing. In fact, it may be the very best, because you can use the stars of Orion to find seven other constellations immediately around it.[more…]

Both northern and southern hemisphere stargazers are treated to many striking constellations that are visible any night of the year – the northern and southern polar constellations. These constellations[more…]

Stargazing can keep you busy all year long, with more than 88 constellations visible in the sky, from the big bright obvious ones like Orion the Hunter, to the tiny faint hard-to-spot ones like Mensa the[more…]

The first time you take your binoculars out stargazing, you may be disappointed to find that all the stars, planets and faint fuzzies that you’d planned on observing are dancing all over the place when[more…]

So long as you know what you’re buying, there’s no such thing as a bad telescope. If you’re on a limited budget, then a cheap, light telescope may be just the thing for you, allowing you to explore the[more…]

Maybe you have two different stargazing sites in mind and want to figure out which one will work best. Or perhaps you want to keep a record of how your sky quality changes over time. You can, of course[more…]

Stargazing through binoculars or a telescope is hugely rewarding, but imagine if you could capture stunning images of what you see to share with the world. Astrophotography awaits, and with recent developments[more…]

Just as you can mark the Moon’s position each night against the fixed stars and constellation patterns, you can mark the planets, too. The planets also make paths against the fixed stars. Over the course[more…]

Stargazing at the Sun is incredibly dangerous. You should never look at the Sun directly, even with your naked eyes, and especially not with a telescope or binoculars. If you do, you can easily blind yourself[more…]

The Moon is the Earth’s nearest neighbour in space, and it can be the brightest thing in the night sky. It’s also one of the most amazing sights seen through even a small telescope. If you look at only[more…]

Stargazing telescopes have a lot of different components and moving parts, and you should become familiar with all of them and how best to care for them before you use the telescope for stargazing. Following[more…]

You will likely need to constantly re-adjust the focus of your telescope when stargazing, because everyone’s eyes are different. You’ll want to know how to focus your telescope before you try it in the[more…]

Most stargazers are content with just using their eyes, whether unaided or looking through a pair of binoculars or a telescope. You may be one of them, but every so often, you may see such a beautiful[more…]

The Moon is the Earth’s nearest neighbour in space, and when you’re stargazing, it can be the brightest thing in the night sky. It’s also one of the most amazing sights seen through even a small telescope[more…]

Every culture in the world has its own myths and legends and had different ways of joining up the stars into patterns. The ancient Greek constellation names were passed on only by historical accident,[more…]

Stargazers identify stars and other objects in relation to which constellation they’re in. No matter what you’re looking for in the night sky, you can find it in one of the 88 official constellations.[more…]

You can find a lot of great stargazing signposts in the southern skies — and none more so than the Southern Cross, Crux. The constellations that you can find by using the Southern Cross as a signpost are[more…]

Astronomers measure a star’s brightness using something called the magnitude scale, where each star – or planet or faint fuzzy – has a magnitude brightness value. When looking up at stars from the Earth[more…]

When stargazing with your naked eyes, you can see more than 6,000 stars, 88 constellations, dozens of faint fuzzies, five planets, one Moon and more. A star map helps you become familiar with the constellations[more…]